


The Halla Box

by briarandbramble



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dalish Issues, Dalish Lore, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 01:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15328692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briarandbramble/pseuds/briarandbramble
Summary: She knew what he had meant when he had told her that he was selfish. "It would be kinder in the long run…" then why would he visit her every night with that look on his face, but always from afar? It seemed cruel to her, because it hurt so much that some nights she felt unable to breathe, to show himself to her but to hide from her direct gaze. She spoke to him often, of her hurt, of her understanding, and recently of her anger, but the look on his face never changed. She wondered if he ever heard her at all. She had come up with a plan to make him hear her.Post-Trespasser Solavellan angst





	The Halla Box

Inquisitor Lavellan pulled her cloak more tightly around her. She was thankful for the rain. Wearing her heavy green woollen winter cloak would have been more conspicuous than she wanted, even in late autumn as it were. Although she could never disguise her short stature, the heavy rain gave her an excuse to at least hide her face. Being Dalish among shemlen cities came with its own set of problems, but ever since she had her vallaslin removed she had struggled with the changes in the treatment of her by the shemlen. It was not worse or better, just bad in a different way. Walking through towns and cities with her vallaslin, she had seen parents pull their children closer to them in her presence out of fear she would kidnap them, and been hastily thrown out of shops by distrustful owners who accused her of thievery. She had gone from being a spectacle that would cause a room full of shems to fall to a hush, to being almost invisible, as they would mistake her for a scullery maid doing chores for her fictional master. They now treated her flippantly and with a blatant air of superiority.

The heavy rain also gave her an excuse to keep up a good walking pace. She was also used to rushing through towns such as this one; hanging around too long usually resulted in unpleasant exchanges at best. Since she was, for all intents and purposes, a city elf, her natural fast and nervous pace made the shemlen uneasy and she had taken a while to realise that a meek, bowed, and nervous composure is what was needed to pass through the streets relatively unnoticed. It was a necessary evil, but it grated on her and she was glad of the respite from having to act obedient and servile. She also didn’t have the time nor the patience to tiptoe her way through the town today. She had learned to spot the Dread Wolf’s clever spies now, and she wanted to give them the slip, at least for a moment, mostly because their omnipresence grated on her more than the condescending shemlen. She wondered whether he cared not for her feelings or whether it was just another necessary evil to him. She was oddly glad to know he was looking out for her in his way, but she had felt her privacy slip away the moment he had told her of his spies in the Inquisition.

Taking detours through alleyways and slipping under broken fences, hoping to give Solas his money’s worth for his wearisome spies, she left the town behind her and hastened even more, ignoring the heavy drips from the canopies onto her hooded head. She didn’t really want to lose them, and knew that she couldn’t, but she had a plan, and hoped that she could fool them into at least suspecting that she was trying to. Half expecting to see that damned wolf through the trees, that cowardly wolf who watched her with that pathetic expression on his face like a kicked puppy. She had cried and cried when she first saw him in her dreams, pleaded and begged him to just talk to her, it couldn’t hurt to talk of banal things and just be near one another, surely. She shook her head, embarrassed at how pathetic she must have seemed in turn. She then had tried to appeal to him, to let him know that she understood and that she loved him, to show him kindness and empathy, and yet he never came closer. The raw hurt she felt before had now hardened to an anger, and anger that felt hot in her belly and got caught in her throat whenever she spoke out loud. She knew what he had meant when he had told her that he was selfish. _It would be kinder in the long run…_ then why would he visit her every night with that look on his face, but always from afar? It seemed cruel to her, because it hurt so much that some nights she felt unable to breathe, to show himself to her but to hide from her direct gaze. She spoke to him often, of her hurt, of her understanding, and recently of her anger, but the look on his face never changed. She wondered if he ever heard her at all. She had come up with a plan to make him hear her.

It shouldn’t be far now. The rain began to let up, slowing to a light shower, and the sun began to peek through the dark clouds, releasing the warm smell of mineral and earth from the sodden ground. Lavellan took down her hood as she reached her destination. Nestled among overgrown roots, covered with moss and left strangely completely dry from the thick canopy above, she reached the huge statue of a wolf. She had found it long ago, before the Inquisition, before the Conclave. She had been a tearaway as a teenager, and with her friends from another clan she had snuck into the tavern of the town she had just left behind. It was stupid, she was not proud of the memory. The tavern owner soon caught them and called the town guard. She was the only one of the six that managed to escape. Frightened, alone, and drunk on stolen shem wine, she ran out into the woods without thinking, eventually coming to this statue and huddling, wet and shivering, under Fen’Harel’s stoic gaze until dawn broke. However frightened she had ever been of the Dread Wolf, that night she felt that he had been her guardian, watching over one of the People that had lost her way. Her belief in her gods never once faltered throughout her early life, and she had come back a year later with an offering as she thought was only fair, but the unmoving stone statue seemed apathetic and intimidating. She did not stay for very long.

She did not know if Fen’Harel ever even knew about the shivering drunk Dalish elf girl who thought she was braver than she really was and took refuge under his great and terrifying maw that night. Even if he did, she did not think he ever once thought or cared about the slip of a girl who made a stupid mistake and hid under a statue of his image. Now that she knew him, she was sure that he never knew or cared. It was not like he could see through the eyes of the great stone wolf built by the hands of her ancient ancestors. But she knew that he could see through the eyes of his spies that followed her here, that followed her everywhere. She looked up at the great maw of the stone beast, and for a moment felt as though she was there all those years ago, huddled into a pathetic ball and staring up at the Dread Wolf’s jaws as he stared ever out into the distance. It suddenly felt to her as though an arrow hit her in the chest as she remembered, but she did not falter, and pulled out the slim wooden box she carried in the crook of her arm. She had facetiously carved an image of herself on the box, represented as a white halla emblazoned with Mythal’s vallaslin, the vallaslin he had gently and sweetly burned from her face all those years ago. She hesitated for a moment, almost regretting the slight against both of them that was intended by the image when she remembered that private moment in Crestwood, but rallied and placed the box between his great paws. She turned her back to the Dread Wolf, back towards the village and the rising chorus of birdsong.

\--

The Dread Wolf lay in his den, weary. Even with Mythal’s power, he felt tired in the waking world. He would often lament to himself that he ever needed to wake at all. This world felt hollow and empty, and it drained him. He felt as though he walked through a vacuum, as it pulled at the vestiges of the Fade within him, hungry for what it lacked. He often wondered what would happen if he never slept. Would the world suck the Fade like marrow from his bones? Would he walk the strange and solid earth as a ghost, as numb and ignorant of the Fade its inhabitants? It did not matter, he supposed. It was all academic as he did not intend to find out.

He heard a scuffle outside the door. Irate, he got up and put a kettle of water onto the hearth of the fireplace at the far corner of the room. He hated that fireplace, he prefered clean veilfire to the heavy ashen fire that burned within it, and he disliked the heat that emanated from it. Unfortunately, it was more useful than veilfire for making his tea. A clever elf he once knew had suggested he use sliced fruit or spices to make it more palatable, or maybe it was a touch of halla milk. He had attempted a number of these, mainly to placate her and stop her ceaseless questioning about his beverage habits, but found it made the tea no better. Just bad in a different way. He sat at the chair of his desk, turning it to face the door and await whoever would enter once the scuffle subsided. A tall elf clad in shining armor knocked, and entered at his command, a shorter and nervous-looking elf in plainclothes at his heels. Solas looked inquisitively and expectantly at the shorter of the pair, who looked at the door guard and back at Solas, who sighed.

“Report.”

“Yes, um. Sir… Fen’Harel, sir. We have received, recovered that is, some intelligence that we may think could be of some interest to yourself, sir.” She held out the box in both hands, then drew her hands back when Solas said nothing. She coughed, and continued.

“Oh, um, yes. It is a box of some description placed at a statue of, well, Fen’Harel, sir, a wolf statue, between the um, paws, sir.”

“I see. Did you see who placed it?” Solas said kindly, attempting to be patient with the city elf despite his fatigue. He disliked how flighty and nervous they seemed to be in his presence, despite his insistence they treat him no differently than their peers, but felt responsible for them nonetheless.

The city elf winced. “Yes, sir, we did. It was the Inquisitor sir, we were following her as per your request, and we followed her to this particular statue. It has not been opened by me or any of the others in our cell, I made sure of it, sir.” She stood a little taller at this final assertion, but shrank as the door guard placed his hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her towards Solas. She gingerly held out the box, again in both hands, head bowed, and jumped a little as Solas took it from her grasp. He looked at her sadly.

“Thank you, Mina. You may take your leave.” he smiled, and she brightened at the sound of her own name. “Of course, Fen’Harel sir.” She smiled back, bowed, and left, followed by the door guard.

Solas’ face fell as soon as he was once again alone. He recoiled a little as he took a sip of the quickly cooling tea, and stared at the box. He sensed no magical energies from it. It looked to be hastily painted, but intricately and carefully carved. He slowly ran his fingers over the delicate antlers of the leaping halla, fashioned into the complex branching symbol of Mythal. A smirk pulled at his face, as he wondered how his vhen’an seemed to sense more than she knew. She had taken his advice against drinking from the Well of Sorrows, and could not have known he now was a vessel for Mythal’s power, nor that he now held her Sentinels at his command. Nor did he ever tell her of the matching vallaslin he once burned from his own face. He remembered her soft touch and loving gaze at the scar on his brow in their all too brief moments of intimacy, and had not the heart to tell her. He understood the slight she had meant by placing this image of herself as a halla, sacred to her people but a prey animal nonetheless, on a simple carved box which looked so unmistakably Dalish, between the powerful paws of the statue the likes of which he had seen many times. He wondered which direction the box was placed. Was it leaping away from the wolf’s grasp, or into its arms? He supposed it was too late to ask, and did not expect his spies to remember such a small detail. He decided he did not want to open the box. He placed his half-empty teacup at its side, and left through a nearby eluvian to one of the many libraries he had set about exploring.

Solas took longer than usual in choosing a book. He felt unusually restless. His thoughts swam in his head, and he struggled to keep his mind on the task at hand. He attempted to brush them aside to no avail. Frustrated with himself, he chose any book at random and made his way to a dusty chair in the corner of the library. He found himself merely scanning it, making the necessary movements for reading a book, while not taking in the words. He tried another book, and another still. After a few tries of finding himself too restless to read, he decided to give up, and retreated to another eluvian.

He stepped out into the ruins of a chateau, breathing in the familiar dry air. Picking up a dusty robe draped over the outstretched arm of a nearby statue depicting some forgotten Orlesian noble, he donned it over his clothes and walked over to the smooth and heavy stone table in the centre of the decrepit, once beautiful courtyard. He picked up a box filled to the brim with assorted trowels and carving tools he had used to weigh down his papers. The walls of the courtyard had once been covered in hideous and poor quality murals of decadent Orlesian feasts and orgies, but after he had peeled the flaking gold leaf from the walls and chipped back the plaster, the walls were perfect for his beloved art form. His frescoes would take days of nonstop work to complete, and were a chance for him to clear his mind and focus on one single task. A reprieve from the constant tugging of guilt and duty. He shuffled through his papers covered with charcoal sketches, looking for a spark of inspiration to start his work. When he found none, he attempted a few more sketches but, much to his exasperation, could not seem to draw any one line to his liking. He rose and fought to get out of his robe, throwing it aggressively at the sneering noble’s head, and charged through the eluvian once more.

He stepped back into his room. He had resigned himself that he would not be able to concentrate on any one thing until he opened that damned halla box. Magical energy or no, it had captivated him, no matter how much he tried to ignore it. The woman he loved was indomitable and it seemed she could still pull his attention from his duty, even from their impossible and impenetrable distance. He sat at the desk and glared at the box. _Such a simple thing._ Holding the base in one hand, he tried to pry it open. The lid did not budge. He fidgeted with it, attempting to lever it from several angles, turning it upside down, yet the lid held tight. _Is there a trick to it?_ He decided there was not, noticing some imperfections at the lid’s edges where, he presumed, she had hammered the thing shut with a blunt object. _Fenedhis._ Bewildered, he realised that it was stuck tight by design.

After several irritating rounds of trial and error, and briefly but quietly losing his temper, he managed to pull it open slightly. Levering the crack with his lithe fingers, the lid popped off. He noted that it was designed in such a way that one would need a hammer to close it, as the two halves did not fit together at all. He imagined her face as she in turn imagined him attempting to open the thing, and softened at the thought of her amused by his frustration. _I suppose it is only fair, vhen'an._ The lid clattered to the table, and he picked up the thick parchment from within the box. _Not thick,_ he thought, noting that there was merely a lot of it, very tightly and snugly rolled within the box. Was it a trick? Had she compromised him? Had she decided to give up? Paling at the thought of what it might be, he balked at unrolling it and instead went to make more tea, feeling uncharacteristically shaken.

He sat down once more, with his wretched tea. He breathed, and scowled at the letter, and swiftly opened it, dreading at what information might be within. It was a letter addressed to him in her familiar hand. “Arasha,” the letter began. _My happiness._ His breath hitched in his throat, to his surprise. He read the entire letter from beginning to end. He could have recited along with it word for word from memory. She had written every question she had attempted to ask him in her dreams, when he visited her, knowing he could not answer then, nor could he now. She had written questions about him, wondering about his life before her, and before Fen’Harel. She had written questions about the Fade left unanswered, about the Veil, about the Breach, about the Orb, about the evanuris and about the Forgotten Ones. She had written questions about stories her clan had told her. She had written questions to him about whether she needed to worry for their safety, or the safety of their friends. She had written questions about the two of them, about intimate moments, her insecurities and her dreams for the future. So many questions, and in that moment he wished he could sweep her up in his arms and answer every one.

Solas slightly approved.


End file.
